2. Professional Certification Primer
APMP
Professional Certification Primer
Thanks for inviting me to speak today. I’m here to talk about APMP certification and how it can benefit both you and your organization. My goal today is to explain each of the certification levels that APMP offers and help you do your best on assessments at each level.
You are already 75% done!

3. Agenda Why do it? Professional overview Choosing an impact
How to approach professional certification
Completing your PPIP
Here’s a quick overview of what we’ll talk about today. First, I’ll tell you about some of the benefits of APMP and earning APMP certification. Then, I’ll give a quick overview of our certification program, which is considered the global standard for proposal management competency. Next, we’ll talk about each of the certification levels: Foundation, Practitioner, and finally, Professional. We will stop for questions between each of the levels,
Questions as we go…

4. Demonstrates achievement through leadership and communications
Finally, we come to Professional-level certification.

5. Why Pursue PROFESSIONAL Certification?
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO YOU?
If you achieve Practitioner-level certification and want to take your credentials even further, your next option is to work toward Professional certification. Professional certification is the highest certification level offered by APMP, and thus the highest credential you can earn in the bid and proposal management profession. Only a few professionals have earned this distinction.
Professional status shows that you:
Have achieved the highest certification attainable in your profession
Have made a significant contribution to your profession
Have demonstrated your ability to lead and direct others in achieving broad-reaching goals
Are a thought leader and champion for improvement
Have superior communications skills

6. Eligibility for Professional
To achieve PROFESSIONAL status, you must …
BE A CURRENT APMP MEMBER who holds Practitioner-level status
HAVE 7 YEARS’ experience in bid and proposal environment
PROVIDE A REFERENCE who can rate your communications and behavioral skills
COMPLETE THE PPIP or Proposal Professional Impact Paper (.pptx) explaining how you have had a significant impact on your organization and/or the profession
PARTICIPATE IN A COMPETENCY interview during which you present your impact and answer questions
If you achieve Practitioner-level certification and want to take your credentials even further, your next option is to work toward Professional certification. Only a few business development professionals have earned this distinction.
In a nutshell, the Professional level certification is all about impact—tangible differences you have made to your organization or your profession. Qualifying for professional includes a Proposal Professional Impact Presentation, or PPIP, which you will submit in PowerPoint format and present to a panel of experts. You must also have a reference who can attest to your experience.

7. Professional Certification THREE DISTINCT STAGES1
DEVELOPING SLIDES THAT
COMMUNICATE YOUR IMPACT
PRESENTATION SHOWS COMMUNICATION & LEADERSHIP 2
Q&A SHOWS COMMUNICATION, DEPTH
& BREADTH OF LEADERSHIP SKILLS 3

8. Select an Impact IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU!!
The impact you choose must represent a significant achievement demonstrating personal commitment and initiative, and provide a sustainable improvement in areas such as:
Customer interaction
Proposal and bid management
Individual or organizational development
Proposal processes or infrastructure improvement
The impact must show that you were personally responsible and demonstrate that your organization, a client’s organization, or the proposal profession had a quantifiable gain
Your day-to-day job activities are not considered for professional impact and must be clearly above and beyond your normal activities and assignments
If you have any questions about the appropriateness of your chosen impact check with Cathy Day before you start
IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU!!

9. Examples of Impact
Set up team to diagnose root cause(s) and build corrective action to address declining win rates
Educated sales and marketing communities on the business benefits of bid professionalism
Developed integrated sales and bid processes
Led creation of common terminology and techniques across proposal teams
Changed perception of role of proposal support within organization by introducing proposal management as a brand-new certified profession. This improved the professionalism and quality of proposals, thereby increasing revenue
Set up proposal management procedures at ABC Group culminating in a central proposal center and a promotion for me
Led, organized, managed, and directed the team that developed and instituted a new business development process
Redesigned our Final Document Review process
One thing we hear often from people who are considering Professional certification is that they don’t think they’ve created impact or aren’t sure what significant impact includes. There are many types of impact—and chances are, if you’re a leader in your organization, you’ve helped create one of these.
What other types of impact can you think of? [pause for input]

10. The PPIP: YOUR STORY IN 11 SLIDES YOUR STORY IN 11 SLIDES
1-2
3-4
5-6
Summary of Your Impact (1 or 2 slides)
The Situation (1 or 2 slides)
The Tasks (1 or 2 slides)
High level outline of what you changed within your organization
Why the change was necessary
What was the challenge in your organisation was facing?
Which stakeholders were impacted by the challenge – cause and effect?
The task(s) that were required to achieve the desired results
Who the task(s) impacted and how they were impacted
A TASK IS: High level category of activities
It might seem overwhelming to try to talk about ways you’ve made a difference in your organization. You might not know where to begin.
Fortunately, just like with Practitioner certification, we have plenty of templates to guide you on your way. Here’s a suggested format for setting up your PPIP. You can see how this moves logically from the challenge, to solution, to results, to your plans for continuous improvement. When you break down the work this way, I think you’ll find that the task becomes much less intimidating. And of course, whenever you have questions or get stuck, we’re here to help you out.
Any questions about Professional certification, Practitioner certification, or anything else we’ve covered? [pause for questions]

11. The PPIP YOUR STORY IN 11 SLIDES
7-8
9-10 11
The Activities (1 or 2 slides)
The Results (1 or 2 slides)
Continuing Professional Development (1 or 2 slides)
The activities required
How you managed them
How you communicated progress
AN ACTIVITY IS: Detailed items/actions in each task category
The quantified results achieved
The quantified benefits to your organization
Describe how the results and benefit were measured
Your continuing professional development plan for the next 24 months
How these activities will benefit you and others within the profession
It might seem overwhelming to try to talk about ways you’ve made a difference in your organization. You might not know where to begin.
Fortunately, just like with Practitioner certification, we have plenty of templates to guide you on your way. Here’s a suggested format for setting up your PPIP. You can see how this moves logically from the challenge, to solution, to results, to your plans for continuous improvement. When you break down the work this way, I think you’ll find that the task becomes much less intimidating. And of course, whenever you have questions or get stuck, we’re here to help you out.
Any questions about Professional certification, Practitioner certification, or anything else we’ve covered? [pause for questions]

12. PPIP Presentation and Q&A session
Your impact has been reviewed and approved — now it’s all about communications!
After your presentation, you will be asked 5 questions (20 mins)
Time limit for your presentation is 20 min. with questions limited to clarification

13. Example of Interview Question
“Give an example of a time when someone misunderstood what you were attempting to communicate to them. Explain why the misunderstanding occurred, how you resolved the situation and what you, personally, learned from this experience.”
Prepare and practice your answers ahead of time using STAR
Answers to the questions must be in the STAR format
You may think you know a “better” way, but STAR is the requirement

14. The Star Methodology
An international standard for answering behavioral questions
Situation — describe a situation or problem that you encountered within the context of the Impact you have described in your PPIP
Task — describe the task that the situation required or your ideas for resolving the problem actions you took
Action — describe the action you took, and the obstacles that you had to overcome
Results — highlight the outcomes achieved from the actions you took

15. Don’t take our word for it…
“Each time I achieved another level of certification, I got a promotion and a better job.” (Small Setting)
“Professional Certification gives our clients and partners more confidence in our teams.” (Multi-Practice Consulting)
“It’s the one way we demonstrate we are continually improving our capability to win business.” (Telecommunications)
“Practitioners are our coaches, educators, mentors and visionaries.” (Defense)
“Certified individuals are viewed as agents for change and process improvement.” (Large Government Contractor)

16. Making Certification Meaningful
This entire process, from the very early preparation for the Foundation exam through the Professional interview, has been a great experience. So often in our work there’s no time for reflection — it’s all forward motion.
The APMP Certification process forces you to stop and evaluate not only what you’ve done in the past, but also how well your approach has worked, how you can improve, and how you can build your own future within our profession.”
PEGGY DUFOUR
Proposal Center Manager
Bechtel National, Inc.
I’d like to begin with this quote from Peggy Dufour. Peggy has earned all 3 levels of APMP certification and is a mentor. [read quote on slide.]
This theme of reflecting on what you’ve achieved—and planning ways to improve—is at the heart of Practitioner-level certification. I’ll explain more about how to do this later on.

17. GO TO THE APMP APP AND RATE THIS SESSION NOW
(while it’s fresh in your mind!)

18. Thank you for your APMP Membership
CHARLIE DIVINE | Director of Certification
Association of Proposal Management Professionals® (APMP®)
P.O. Box Washington, DC